Picasso, Tapas, and Fireworks

Casa Batlló, one of the famous sites of Barcelona, was right down the street from the hostel we stayed at.

The next day, I made sure to get up in time for breakfast at the hostel (I hate starting the day without breakfast, and I always take advantage of free breakfasts at hotels and hostels). Breakfast was over around ten, and I think we finally left the hostel around noon. There was only one thing on our list to see that day—the Picasso museum. We'd all bought Barcelona cards, which included free public transit rides and several free tickets for museums and famous sites. However, the Picasso museum was not one of them. So we decided to go see the museum on Sunday, since the museum has free admissions on Sundays.

The church that we found before the museum.

We took the metro to the stop nearest the Picasso museum and walked around for a bit before going to the museum. We stopped for lunch first—our first full day in Barcelona, and we got lunch at an American-style diner. We all wanted authentic Spanish food, but burgers and milkshakes were just too tempting! After enjoying our not-so-Spanish lunch, our group of six continued on to find the museum. We ended up going the wrong way at first, and found a cathedral. I have no idea what the name of the cathedral was, but we took some pictures, and then got directions from a local on how to find the Picasso museum.

When we finally found the museum, there was a line of people stretched through the alleyway that led to the entrance. It took almost an hour of waiting in line to finally get into the museum—people turn out in droves for free admissions! We took turns visiting the shops lining the street, and it made the wait go faster. I bought some souvenirs in one of the shops—a turtle decorated in tile in the style of Guell Park. It's perfect for my little collection of turtles!

The altar area of the church we saw after we
visited the Picasso museum.

The museum was astounding. There were over 4,000 paintings, sketches, and works of art—all by Picasso. And this museum isn't even all of Picasso's work—hundreds, maybe even thousands of pieces of his art are scattered throughout the world. It's mind-boggling to think that one man could create that much art. I know that it was his job and his passion, so he devoted almost all his time to creating art. And not all of the art in the museum was massive, intricate paintings. There were a lot of small works and rough sketches. But it's still amazing to see such a graphic representation of just how much art one man made.

We spent a few hours walking from room to room, admiring the artwork. There were so many people in the museum that I couldn't stop and stare at every painting that I wanted to for as long as I wanted to. But I still got to see so many wonderful pieces of art, and I so enjoyed visiting the museum. It was well worth the wait in line, and, although I was more than happy to get free admission, the price of the tickets definitely would have been worth it as well.

After leaving the museum, the six of us went in search of dinner. We wanted to find tapas—it was about time to have some traditional Spanish fare. We stopped at a few places, but kept walking until we found somewhere that wasn't so expensive. We stopped in a church along the way, just to check out the interior, before continuing on our way. The tapas place we ended up eating at wasn't far from the museum, and was just around the corner from the church we'd stopped at. We all ordered a few tapas to split, and then we got one main dish of rice and sea food.

Hanging out at the shore in Barcelona at night!

I'd never had tapas before, but I like the concept of getting several small dishes to make up a meal. I also enjoyed the seafood more than I'd expected. I've never really had mussels or clams before then, so I was a little surprised by just how much I liked it. After getting our tapas for dinner, we headed back to the hostel to change before going to the beach. We'd heard there would be fireworks to celebrate a saint's feast day that night, and the beach would be the best place to be. So to the beach we went!

We learned that night that when the Spanish said there'd be fireworks, they didn't mean well-organized fireworks displays set off by professionals. What they really meant was that there would be people at the beach setting off their own fireworks, usually by sticking them in the sand or a bottle half-buried in sand and lighting them with the lit butts of their cigarettes. It was chaos, absolute chaos. And it was fun. We sat on the beach and talked and laughed and jumped whenever a firework went off too near us. It was just another one of those things where we didn't have to do anything, we simply had to enjoy the moment.